The Mind Game of Golf...

What can you see in the picture below?

For many golfers your golf gestalt is very similar to your initial interpretation of the image. Today, you see that which has been presented to you by the golf industry which is primarily technical lessons, equipment and relatively minimal regard for the psychology of the game. Golf has always been presented this way and it truely undermines the real challenge and beauty of the game. This leaves you regularly frustrated by your inconsistent performance. When you see, understand and apply the skills presented on Target Oriented Golf, you will experience a new golf paradigm and your golfing gestalt will complete. When you saw both women in the picture, did you say "ahh, I see them now!". Or maybe you can not see both women? Take another look. This is called completing your gestalt. When you do you will be a little closer to understanding what Target Oriented Golf will do for you and your game of golf.

When you watch TOG and say "ahh, I see it now!" you will have arrived at that place in your golfing life when it all begins to make sense. You will experience a paradigm shift and see the game through new eyes, as you did the image above. You will begin to understand why the majority of your mistakes are mental errors, not technical, out on the course. This will help you stop the technical analysis paralysis on the range and you will begin to work more on the skills I have to demonstrate to you. You will learn how to trust your technique.

Having an incomplete gestalt only leads to a life of frustration and inconsistency out on the golf course. You live it every weekend and I lived it too. It was the catalyst for my research and production of this work. I know every golfer needs to understand the content of this DVD in order to play consistent golf but unfortunately not every golfer can acknowledge that their mind is the weakest link in their game, so instead continue to doubt their technique. This should become even more obvious the more technically proficient you become but you continue to believe your technique keeps letting you down. You really have no alternative due to your incomplete gestalt. This doubt cycle actually limits your ability to perform throughout your golfing life. Like an aeroplane trying to take off in strong winds, as soon as you hit turbulence, you put your wheels back on the ground and you bump along the runway. Let Target Oriented Golf show you how to fly.

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What is Golf Performance Coaching?

This is another paradigm shift in thinking for you but you really have to ask why you keep playing so inconsistently, why all that hard work on the range keeps letting you down in competition? I honestly believe your technical coaches build great swings, you simply do not learn how to trust them because they do not and can not teach you how to do so. Whilst you continue to focus only on your technique, how will you ever trust it? You can not for it is not humanly possible. You live a golfing life forever doubting your ability and I know nothing else in your life where you behave this way. It is why you plateau in your performance. There are other significant skills you need to develop in order to play the game of golf including anxiety control, concentration, targeting and acceptance. When you practice these on the range, you finallly learn how to trust your technique because you stop paying attention to it.

I work with professional, talented amateurs and junior golfers. I teach players how to build a discipline of mind and a flow of action during the critical period between stepping into the ball and initiating the backswing, the period where performance lives. I call this the Process. When you get this right, the swing and putting stroke simply go along for the ride. You give up control of your actions and gain control of your mind. Trust me, you are doing it the other way round at the moment and it will be frustrating!

This period of time is where a player's mind runs 'out of control' in competitive situations and this is most evident on the putting green. I see anxiety in almost every player from pro to amateur due to their excessive technical control. It is like watching a surgeon operate rather than an artist perform. So much attention on physical control and 'doing it right' combined with distributed attention on the outcome of the putt actually stimulates adrenaline flow, which in turn destroys your putting stroke and you miss again. Nothing to do with poor technique, everything to do with your thinking. This actually happens anywhere from the first tee to the last putting green and many places inbetween. Your focus of attention during this period of time should be the same for all shots including your putting so you can be in the optimal physical and mental states to perform on the golf course. Golf is played stress free because you build a discipline of mind and you learn why, when and where your focus of attention needs to be throughout the Process.

Supported by SwingLAB's K-Vest you can see empirical evidence how learning the skills I teach improves your swing by taking your attention completely away from it! Your rhythm and flow of actions is captured in your Kinetic Chain which shows the timing relationship between your hands, shoulders and hips throughout your swing. The chart below shows tension in the backswing in the arms as shown by the green line and is caused when a player's attention is on their swing. The line becomes smooth once you learn how to shift your attention away from technical control and a smooth takeaway results in significant improvements in your timing on the downswing which in turn generates more power. You will feel the difference for you will be able to due to the lack of muscle tension.

When you stop trying to control your actions, you willl reveal what your swing really looks and feels like. You know the one, the practice swing which feels so good compared to the one when you hit the ball! What changes between the two? Your focus of attention and arousal levels! That is where I come in. The difference is analogous to learning chords on a musical instrument and playing music, notice what happens to your focus of attention when you begin to play. Free at last to trust your actions you have mastered through repetition. You stop trying to control your actions and you play music, you trust your self. Golf is no different when you learn how to trust your swing by focusing your attention on playing golf.

I will teach you what performance feels like so you can practice it and take that to the course. So you can learn how to trust, not control, your technique and begin to play golf the way you know you can but so rarely see.

Here is your pathway to success and it is critical for you to understand each step before you can progress to the next:

Comprehension (TOG) ---> Arousal Control ---> Attentional Focus ----> Target Orientation----> High Performance Golf.

Today, most golfers can not perform consistently because they do not understand targeting. You will never be able to target effectively until you understand attentional focus. You can not focus until you master arousal control. You will never remain calm in a competitve situation without comprehension. Your journey begins here with Target Oriented Golf.

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Why do you need Target Oriented Golf?

 

When you can remove all the statements from this picture in your practice and more importantly your play, you are half way to understanding Target Oriented Golf.

 

 

If this is how you think when you practice, how do you think when you begin to play poorly? What becomes the focus of your attention? More importantly, where is the target in this nightmare?!

 

Target Oriented Golf will show you how to train your conscious mind for golf both on the range and on the course. The DVD is also unique amongst the plethora of auditory based hypnosis CD's available from clinical psychologists which attempt to change your SUB-conscious mind. Playing with hypnotic suggestion CD's in the living room may be your idea of fun but when did golf become a magic show? You MUST take control of your conscious mind and no-one is teaching you how to do this. It is your conscious mind which determines how you behave and perform out on the course. Please leave your sub-conscious in peace to do what it does best, manage your physical actions as it does in every other walk of life. If you are a serious, dedicated golfer do not hesitate for there are no quick fixes on offer here and there is alot of work to be done. Golf requires patience, discipline and trust and they all need to be practiced on the range just like your swing.

 

Golf psychology books are fun to read but do not show you how to apply the theories discussed so we acquire some nice ideas but they get washed away in the heat of competition. If the written word really was effective golf instruction, we would all be champions. For the first time you have the opportunity to SEE the 'big picture' of golf psychology and it will demonstrate why all those isolated tips in forums, magazines and from technical coaches have proven so ineffective in bringing about any permanent change in your game. Most work for a short while then you return to old habits. When you pay attention to the skills presented you can stop paying attention to your technique and finally begin to perform the way you know you can but so rarely experience. You will discover why learning how to swing is very different to learning how to play golf. Presenting a new golf paradigm on DVD was not easy or undertaken lightly but it will return the joy of golf to you.

 

Golfers devote most of their time on the range to working on their technical skills. When do you learn how to trust your swing when you spend all your time doubting it? You never will. What golfers think in the time before and after their swings determines how well they perform on the golf course. The practice swing is proof of this. Feels great I'm sure. So what changes between the practice swing and the real swing? Your THOUGHTS do. So how much time do you spend working on this critical time before and after your swing on the range? The answer is none for most and yet it is anxiety in this time which affects the quality of your swing on course, far more than poor technique especially when you begin to play off handicaps below 20. It can exist anywhere from the first tee to the last putting green and many places inbetween! When you acknowledge it exists within your game, as it does with all players, you will be ready for Target Oriented Golf. The alternative is more of the same frustration you experience every time you play.

 

This image demonstrates how you are taught to keep your head still by technical instructors. Do you know where the student's attention is whilst being man handled like this? Does the technical coach? Of course not. This method of learning how to swing golf clubs is still used today but it is not learning how to play golf, it is learning how to swing golf clubs. It's the difference between learning how to play a musical instrument and reading music, your attentional focus is very different.
Golf Performance lessons will teach you how to keep your head quiet both physically and mentally. Both you and I will know EXACTLY what you are paying attention to throughout your pre-shot routine - that is a very significant difference to how you learn golf today. How will you ever trust your technique when you spend your life paying attention to it on the range? So many technical training aids, so much control. Putting a golf ball is not open heart surgery and it requires touch, feel and trust. Your current approach to golf leaves you playing anxiety riddled and frustrated and you do not know why when you know you are doing everything you have been taught! You never discover that golf performance is determined by how well you trust, not how well you control, your actions. You have never been taught how to do this but learning how to trust is where your golf performance lives.

 

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Concentration...

How often do you hear your inner voice issue little control statements over the ball like "Don't do this or don't do that..." just before you swing your club and where does the ball go! Coincidence? Of course not. It's poor concentration. What had become the focus of your attention in your mind?! Golf success is not determined by what you are looking at but what your mind is focused on and if you were not thinking about the target when you played your shot, you should ask yourself "What were you thinking about and why?!".

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Anxiety...

We often feel confident when hitting balls on the driving range and yet when we stand on the first tee our mind can become flooded with thoughts. These thoughts can destroy that fluid swing we had been working so hard to trust. Every time we have a thought based on self doubt or futures, we set off a chain reaction in our nervous system. It is a simple procedure to reproduce those feelings, even as you read this. Recall a situation in your life where you were in a vulnerable position. It could be a job interview where you really wanted to impress, a first date or waiting to begin a final examination and were not sure you had prepared yourself thoroughly. Can you recall an anxiety provoking situation?

As you do, can you FEEL what is happening to your physical state. A chain reaction has begun. The feeling of being out of ‘control’ of your situation initiates a feeling of anxiety which causes your breathing to become shallow and rapid. This in turn causes dryness in the mouth and a general tensing of the muscular system. Every negative thought you have releases another shot of adrenaline in to your body, setting you up for an innate fight or flight response. Your thought process is simply tricking your body to believe there is something real to fear and it reacts accordingly. Your thoughts. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why some thoughts create anxiety and others do not? You can have many thoughts which have no impact on your performance so what is so different and why do you have them?!

Now, let’s stop this. Take a good deep cleansing breathe, fill your lungs and release it slowly through your nose and mouth. You should feel your shoulders drop and the tension leave your muscles. Do these as many times as you need to relax your body and calm the mind. Does the feeling you have just experienced seem familiar? It is the very same feeling you can have on the first tee, hitting over some water, out of a bunker or putting. Taking some good breathes as part of your pre-shot routine BEFORE you step into your shot, will have your body in the best condition possible for a fluid swing to occur.

If you ignore or are unaware of your physiological state before swinging the club, you will find the swing is often not what you had hoped for.  You may then choose to believe it was ‘your swing’ which was flawed. Maybe your muscle tension prevented you from swinging? This is most likely to be occurring when your round is going poorly so rather than trying to deal with the situation once it has occurred, doesn’t it makes sense that prevention is better than cure? Use your breathing effectively as part of your pre-shot routine to manage arousal control, allowing you to focus on the target. The alternative is elevated arousal, an inability to focus and a poor swing due to loss of target. Sound familiar? You will find there is less time spent wondering “what happened there?” as your ball shoots off in the wrong direction when you learn how to play target oriented golf.

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